


Magic in North America

by Capucine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate History, American History, Canon Rewrite, Gen, Native American Character(s), North America, Rewrite of Magic in North America, Textbook style, Wizarding History, Wizarding Politics, Wizarding World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-05-27 06:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6272608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would it mean to have had magic in pre-Columbian times in North America? What was the impact on all the societies and cultures involved? How did this change colonization (if at all)?</p>
<p>What difference does this make to the Revolutionary War? Civil War? Mexican-American War? How do the many Native American groups fit in to this, and how has magic differed throughout the entirety of what would become America, Canada, and Mexico?</p>
<p>With a primary focus on American history, this is a rewrite of JKR's Magic in North America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue and Cahokia

**Author's Note:**

> So. I am not Native American in any sense. But, I don't think I can fuck it up much more than JK did, so...
> 
> I have put extensive research into what I've written, because this is an interest of mine. This is going to be a series in rather textbook type style.
> 
> If you know more about a topic than I do (especially by virtue of belonging to a group involved), say so! I would rather be told I'm wrong than be ignorant.

The main issue with compiling a history of magic in North America is a lack of knowledge.

It has been recorded, and suggested by devices that allow brief glimpses of magical energy or the past, that ‘North America’, which was hardly called that at the time, was full of magic. A ratio not unlike the rest of the world, but an enormous variety of ‘wizardry’ (a very Euro-magic term, perhaps even an Anglo-magic term, more accurately) was in what would be called North America.

Contact was kept with the magic community in such places, as throughout most of the world. As we know, wizards and alike counterparts have been in contact for a couple thousand years or more, especially as communication spells improved and the need for secrecy also drastically increased.

To use the singular ‘community’ is a bit of a misnomer. There was a plethora of magic communities of all kinds in said continent. 

Magic in such communities varied widely. Here are some of the fragments we know before the Great Death.

Cahokia was a city that was founded around 1400 years ago, lasting until around 800 years. It was one of the biggest cities known in this area, around what the antimagus humans (colloquially referred to by Americans as ‘No-Majs’ in a typical shortening of the words ‘No magic’ and henceforth referred to as antimagii) call the Mississippi River. It had a different name then, according to what we know.

This city housed up to 40,000 people, though exact numbers are unknown. It was a mix of cultures, though still related, in the sense that the Welsh are related to the Scottish. In this mix, there was a tolerant, even occasionally outright encouraging, attitude towards the magic arts. Not to be confused with religion or traditions, magic was viewed as a separate purpose in many ways without cutting one off from the community at large.

There was what could be termed a ‘Wizarding School’ in Cahokia, though it was far more loose than what we know nowadays in the United States of America, Canada, Britain, or so on throughout the English-speaking world.

A child did not need to be separated from antimagii parents or even magic parents for their schooling. Instead, the teaching of magic children of any heritage was something of a community effort, the magii parents and other members of the respective groups would work together to pass on their teachings and ‘spells’ and such. This is a typical approach towards education in these cultures, called Mississippian by antimagii.

The names given themselves have been lost. To time, to fire, to enforced ignorance, and to disease.

The Mississippians, who had other cities in the area marked by large mounds, weren’t an ideal society despite their good treatment of most magus humans. There was still enforced social inequality, the nature of which we can’t know. There appears to have been human sacrifice of some kind, involving burying people alive.

Cahokia was a central node in a loose trade network between Mississippian cities, and there is evidence that magic came in demand towards the end of Cahokia. Some posit that the magii rose up against oppressive chiefs and religious figures of power. Others have noted that the floods could have been entirely natural, or that the abandonment of Cahokia could have been due to disease or warfare.

The tiny scrap of knowledge we have is the note of Cahokian child testing out a long distance communication spell to an Irish wizard, both of whom bemoan the state of magii in their homes, the Irish wizards being under severe persecution by overzealous bishops and the Cahokian child relating feeling trapped and stating she was ‘not allowed to leave.’

What truly happened in Cahokia, we may never know. Unfortunately, we are barely ahead of the antimagii in knowledge on this, much having been lost to time and the Spanish Purge, among other, lesser purges.

The next chapter will examine what is known of other magic presences in pre-Great Death North America.


	2. The Aztec Empire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much of the information about the Aztec culture and people has been lost to time.
> 
> The same goes for the history of magic in the empire.

The Aztec Empire was massive. It’s unknown for certain how many of the Aztecs there were, but it was situated in what is now Mexico. As we can presume from antimagus records, however, the capital city was perhaps more populous than most European cities of the same time period.

Aztec magic has been mostly lost to time. It’s said that some of the magic folk were able to use their spells to hide from the Spanish invaders, but what little evidence we have of communication after that period seems to have died out sometime in the 1670s—perhaps earlier, if none of them are forgeries or mistaken dates.

The Aztecs ruled by fear, there is little doubt about that. Their religion called for human sacrifice, and the value of an individual was quite low. Like many cultures throughout the world, especially at the time, the group was far more important than the individual.

However, popular depictions and quotes seem to have overstated the bloodthirsty nature of the Aztecs. There are descriptions of ‘thousands killed every night to make the sun rise’ and images of terrified victims running for their lives as the Aztecs carve out their hearts.

There is no denying the horror of human sacrifice. As a forbidden method in witchcraft throughout most of the wizarding world, it instills a nausea deep in our gut, and naturally makes us want to condemn.

However, can one paint any other culture with ritualized murder as better? Was it any less heinous when hanging was a public sport in England and the rest of the United Kingdom? Was it more palatable when drawing and quartering was a public exhibition in many European countries?

Not even getting ahead of ourselves, skipping to Salem and perhaps the bitterest part of our history: witch trials.

The Aztecs were a flawed people. So are all peoples.

And when the Spaniards encountered the temples of blood and skulls, freshly prepared for their arrival, seeing as the Aztecs believed it would please them, they responded with horror and fury. They write of their unspeakable disgust and shock at this form of violence and mockery of religion.

Many described it as a shrine to the Devil, a figure common in the history of things antimagii hate.

And so, not used to this particular brand of violence, the Spaniards unleashed their own violence. 

It seems likely that a lot of the tales we hear about the Aztecs, who are mostly obliterated as a people, were invented by their neighbors, who may have also practiced human sacrifice. The neighbors, however, were on the Spaniards’ side, and attacked with them.

What they couldn’t have predicted, however, was smallpox.

Our few accounts from magic folk in the Aztec Empire describe it as the end of time. They describe it as what we would call an apocalypse.

One claims, ‘there are more bodies than there are living people’ to a young wizarding student in Bohemia.

Another sent the message that ‘we live and breathe fear’ to a Persian wizard.

Whatever happened, the entirety of it is lost to time—all full accounts we have are those of the Spanish conquerors, and the violence indicated within may only be the tip of all that happened.

It is presumed there were accounts before the Spanish Purge.

We have no way of knowing for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It does seem to be true that the bloodiness of the Aztecs is greatly overstated, for the reasons mentioned.
> 
> Also, much of their culture was very purposely wiped out by the Spaniards.
> 
> I figured there wouldn't be a wizard among Cortes's people, at least not a Spanish one.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. Cahokia was indeed a thing. More in the next chapter!


End file.
